My Heros – Barbara Jordan
Barbara Jordan (February 21, 1936 – January 17, 1996) was the first African-American woman elected to the US House of Representatives from a Southern State. She was a progressive and a very powerful speaker.
In 1976, she was chosen to be the keynote speaker at the Democratic Convention. It is considered to be Number 5 in the top 100 of all speeches in the 20th Century.
In that speech she said:
“We are a people in a quandary about the present. We are a people in search of our future. We are a people in search of a national community.
We are a people trying not only to solve the problems of the present: unemployment, inflation but we are attempting on a larger scale to fulfill the promise of America. We are attempting to fulfill our national purpose, to create and sustain a society in which all of us are equal.”
Those words are as true today as they were in 1976.
She was a great woman
Yes, her words are true today as in 1076. We still are a people in search of a national community. Unfortunately, there still are many who wish it an exclusive community.
I did not know of her. Thank you for bringing this up. It’s good to be reminded, in the midst of all the current anger and hate, that we have lived through similar times before.